"It was more a matter of friends and family and people that I hadn't talked to that have helped me in my racing career at some point in my life," Newman said Friday at Pocono Raceway.

The Stewart-Haas Racing driver, now a 17-time winner, will not return to SHR in 2014. The popular victory -- Newman is an Indiana native -- didn't hurt his chances of finding a suitable ride for next season, but he said it hadn't generated interest among team owners to the point that they were reaching out to him.

"Obviously it didn't hurt with respect to that but it's not like a light switch where you can just flip it and everything turns on," Newman, 35, said. "I think it's up to us as well to do the same thing we did last weekend and at least show that it's not just a one off deal. We can duplicate and replicate the things that happened. We'll see how things go."

Harvick's move opens up a seat at Richard Childress Racing, and Newman is said to be on the short list of drivers team owner Richard Childress may consider.

The Brickyard victory put Newman in the Wild Card picture with regard to this year's Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup. He is 16th in points heading into Sunday's GoBowling.com 400, but more importantly third in the Wild Card standings.

Stewart and Martin Truex Jr. (Michael Waltrip Racing) currently hold the two available spots for Chase qualifiers outside the top 10 in points.

"I really was just tired and I'm still kind of catching back up," he said. "? We stay really busy at Indy. It's kind of like our second Daytona as far as media, events and things like that. I was really just tired more than anything.

"I stayed up until 12:21 Sunday night responding to texts. I had 350 texts when I landed. So, that took me a little bit of time. And then everybody that you text responds with something else. It just made for a lot of work but I mean I was thankful for it. It was nice."